Four Candidates find themselves in the galleries for free time and some talk of quests.

Candidate Bingo

When

It is afternoon of the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month of the thirteenth turn of the 12th pass.
It is the twenty-fifth day of Summer and 105 degrees. It is hot. Hot, hot, hot. Rukbat bakes the desert. Temperatures soar.

Where

Galleries, Igen Weyr

OOC Date

17 Mar 2018 04:00

"Funny man."

Galleries

Though occasionally cleaned by ambitious (or neurotic) drudges or weyrbrats being disciplined, the lack of Eggs over the last several Turns has led to the Galleries falling into a state of disrepair. Sand can be found…well, everywhere. On the benches, under the benches, on the railings and walkways. There is also the random tidbit leftover from people who've wandered into the gathering place since the last cleaning. A random bit of cloth here, a bit of something that might have been a carving-in-progress once there.

Free time is a commodity that not many Candidates have, and why someone would spend it doing work on such a wretchedly hot day is anyone's guess. But here's Xanthee, tucked all the way up at the very back row of the galleries, surrounded by sevreal pillow cases overflowing with a myriad of dried flowers and leaves, surrounding the ebon haired girl in a thick cloud of flowery smells. In her lap, she has half sewn shut one of the pillow cases, working the thread and needle through with the ease of someone who has many turns of practice helping with the Weyr's mending. Her trio of firelizards are sprawled on the benches about her, little bodies limp with sleep as limbs are scatter haphazardly. If someone were to come closer, they would hear Xan humming softly to herself.

For the love of — so this is where that heavy smell of flowers is coming from! Daenerys has been tortured by it every time he passed the Galleries, being run hither and thither, sent on various errands, mostly to do with cleaning and fetching endlessly. Oh, and trying to contain the errant child or two intent on trying to sneak onto the Grounds; they're always foiled, of course, but it doesn't stop them trying. "Xan, love, what are you doing?" Daenerys asks in surprise, eying the masses of plant material and the giant pillowcases dubiously.

Focused as she is on the task at hand, Xanthee is slightly startled when she heard Daenerys voice calling out to her, jumping slightly in her seat. At first she doesn't register what he is saying and she tilts her head to one side, a quizzical look on her face, but then his words are absorbed and she giggles smugly as she holds up her half finished sewing project. "It's for my quest! I'm putting that sharding Jungle folliage to good use is what I am doing." She smiles. "It's Potpourri sachets, but dragon-sized for Zsaviranth on the sands. And some of these flowers are quite pungent too, so they should last even in the heat of the sands." She is practically beaming and the ingenuity of her idea.

Frowning, Daenerys gives Xanthee a long, squinty-eyed stare, then begins to grin, amused. "Anything to get rid of anything the spinners can hide in, huh." Nope, Xanthee will never live it down, if Daenerys has anything to say about it! He makes his way to Xanthee's plant-o-rama area and settles himself languidly, curlin' up with his legs beneath him and leaning on one palm as he inspects her project carefully. "Well, it's a good start."

"Fucking spinners." Xanthee says venemously, "I am telling you, that was a pretty thoughtless prank someone pulled. Absolutely tasteless." She is obviously still not over it, even though the folliage has been cleared out completely now. "I just hope I never learn who was behind it." Giving a shudder for good measure, the girl picks her needle back up and continues with her sewing. "So I heard the Zingari are back." Cause Xan is connected to the weyrbrat gossip network and nothing tends to get through them. "Let me know once you've gone to see Reveka so I can drop in on her. They were gone a really long time, I wonder why that was." she ponders curiously as she continues her task.

For every time he hears Xanthee grumble, Daenerys has to hide his laughter; he isn't the originator of that particular prank, but he'd never had so much fun as watching the girls shriek and try to escape the deadly spinner. He cants his head to one side, and smiles boyishly at her. "Maybe it just hitched a ride with all that foilage that got brought in?" It's a reasonable suggestion, right? Or maybe not, considering what some of the younger Candidates can get up to — a few are young enough to still be in the stage where trying to wig out girls is more fun than being with them. "Are they?" Daenerys asks hopefully, his eyes brightening as he perks right up, happy to hear this tidbit of news. "Oh, good, I'm definitely going to see her. I've missed her."

From the way that Xanthee's emerald green eyes practically turn heart-shaped when Daenerys mentions that he's missed the Zingari girl, it looks like she's about to explode from happiness. "Oh Daen!!!" she squees as she bounces in her seat, the pillow forgotten for now. Then she continues in a teasing sing songy voice, "You loooove her…" With a smug smile plastered to her lips she giggles and then goes back to the subject of the jungle. "Oh I know they were brought in with the jungle, that's the irresponsible prank I was talking about. They should have foreseen something like this. Took me forever to help clear the place out, but after one landed on me face.." she pauses to add a dramatic touch to that word before continuing, "I just had had enough."

Frequent expressions just such as those always make Daenerys roll his eyes in exasperation, evwn as he laughs at her exuberance. "I do not!" He objects automatically, just to deflate her. But then, more softly, "Yeah… I kinda do." He might as well be for real, and endure Xanthee's smugness, right? As for the jungle, he shakes his head in wry amusement. "Yeah, I can see how having one land on your face could be… less than amusing."

Flatly refusing to believe him when he denies it, Xanthee raises a skeptical dark eyebrow in his direction, a smirk playing on her lips until he fesses up softly. "I know." is her only epicly smug response to the fact that he loves her best friend, smirk expanding into a smile as she picks up the half-sewn pillowcase and continues her work. She waves away any more talk about spinners and moves onto other topics, "I wonder how big she is now, how far along is she again?" she wonders curiously pulling needle and thread through fabric.

Following on the heels of a far shorter, scrawny-looking girl is Iandicael, who mounts the steps of the galleries with much the same attitude as a man facing the gallows. There's enough of a deterrent between the temperature here and those unhatched minds in shells to keep him away until necessity demands it, and yet here he is. Reluctance is written across those scowling features, as well as a tinge of confusion. It seems as though he's not entirely sure why he's following this girl, but he does, right up until she gestures to a seat near his fellow candidates and instructs him to sit. Once he's settled, back ramrod-straight and muscles tense, she promply flashes him a smile and vanishes again.

Freely, Daenerys chuckles at Xanthee being all smug and self-satisfied — then pauses, realizing he hasn't exatly been keeping track, he rubs a hand over his face. "You know, I don't exactly know? I've been more worried about how she's feeling, with the way her family reacted, than anything." Good thing they will soon find out! And then there's a new face in the Galleries, and he offers the man a nod of greeting.

Frequently looking up from her work, Xanthee nods her head a little bit and is about to respond to Daenerys when she watches the brooding looking man being led by a younger girl up to them and left there and she is so intensely curious about the little scene that she blinks her emerald eyes a couple of times before she clears her throat and offers a smile in his direction, "Hello there! I've seen you around the Barracks, but I don't think we've met. I'm Xanthee. This is Daenerys." cause what better way to sate one's curiosity than to ask some questions, "So what are you up to this afternoon?"

Frozen in place, Iandicael seems for a moment as though he won't so much as turn his head to acknowledge this fellow candidates. It's as though the young woman placed a spell of some sort upon him, which is only broken when Xanthee addresses him directly. There's a distinct discomfort in the hard set of his shoulders as he nods a greeting to both of them. "Iandicael." His lip twitches in distaste as she presses with questions, but since he's stuck here — for whatever strange reason — there's little way to avoid them aside from outright ignoring her. "I have the afternoon off." It takes a moment for him to tag on the stilted, "You?"

Frowning, Daenerys studies Iandicael more carefully, noting his stiff resiztance to conversation. What a strange man! But whatever, that's life; everyone is strange in their own way here. "A day off is rare."

For a moment Xanthee doesn't respond, she just stares back at the man who just introduced himself and wonders silently about his dour behaviour. "Afternoon off for me too. But I need to get this quest for the clutch sire out of the way. So close to being done. I hope it will be well received." She says with a touch of worry as she gets back to work on the little bit left she has to sew closed on her current porpourri filled pillow case.

Facing back toward the eggs draws a deeper frown than the one which seems permanently etched upon his features, but Iandicael seems no more inclined to meet the gaze of his fellow candidates. "I was busy this morning." The chores never end! He does slant a glance toward Xanthee when she mentions a quest for the clutchsire, bewildered. "You're doing that?"

Forming a silent opinion of this new acquaintaince, Xanthee laughs softly as he looks bewildered, "Well, when the bronze who fathered the eggs you are going to be standing for asks you to do something, you kinda do it. Besides, I was actually on the Sands when he hatched, his rider and I were Candidates together. That was the first time I stood." Needle and thread continue to move through fabric as she looks back up at him. "So where are you from?" Xan's curiosity knows no bounds it seems.

Fingers rake through his hair, unsettling those dark strands which will undoubtedly be meeting the wrong end of a pair of shears should he impress. "A dragon asked you to do it. A dragon who isn't bonded to you," Iandicael utters, his tone one of consternation. "I have no intention of complying." He glances toward the stairwell almost longingly, like that strange young woman might return and rescue him at any moment. "You continue to do this?" Again, bewilderment wrestles with a constant, underlying frustration which never seems to abate. "Here."

Fortunately, Daenerys isn't the kind to actually laugh outright at such incredulity. " Well, I'm sure you can refuse. Just because the rider must often indulge his dragon doesn't mean we have to." Daenerys shrugs wryly, thinking. "I didn't get the impression that these quests were 'musts' by any stretch of the imagination." He eyes the pile of potpourri thoughtfully, nudging one with his toe.

Flicking her gaze towards her adoptive brother, Xanthee gives a clear, 'What's with this guy?' look before turning back to Iandicael with a friendly smile, although dark eyebrows are quirked as if she has yet to make up her mind about this disgruntled man. Nodding along to Daen's assertions, she shrugs, "I agree, I'm sure you won't get kicked out or anything if you chose not do the task given to you. If you even get asked, I know he's asked a few, but I doubt all have gotten a quest. And you're from here? The Weyr, or the Bazaar?" the girl's curiosity is completely off it's leash now and she must know more about this frustrated man.

Frowning — now there's an easy F-word for Iandicael — at this overly inquisitive girl, the dark-haired man mutters a guff, "I have a task." No more is said about it than that, but he does turn his gaze toward Daenerys with less judgement for the other man's agreement. "The Bazaar." His heavy gaze slides back to Xanthee, eyeing the work around her.

'For real' says Daenerys return look, amused. "Well, good luck with that…" As he rises, he tweaks Xanthee's cheek. "Well, on to the next chore…" And he's off.

Fondly, Xanthee watches Daenerys depart for his next chore before she looks back at the brooding one of there with a sigh. She noticed he offered that he had been given a task but not what it was, and that kind of evasion just does not work with this girl. Relentless when her curiosty is piqued, the raven-haired girl has been known to be a canine with a bone, which is why she responds with, "Oh really? What did he ask you to do then?" She ties off the thread when she gets to the end, snipping it with a small pair of scissors. Then she lifts the pillow in two hands and gives it a pat, as if fluffing it, and a thick cloying waft of intense floral scent is released right into her face, causing her to cough slightly.

Following Daenerys's exit with a downward twitch of his lips, it takes Iandicael a moment to shift his attention back toward Xanthee. A very reluctant moment. That tension rides higher in his shoulders, and he focuses somewhere just off to the right of the girl rather than look at her. His fingers curl slightly, itching to form fists as discomfort tries to shift into irritation. "Get a runner brush for the Weyrwoman. Seems disrespectful."

Forgotten is her task as Xanthee focuses again on the older Candidate, her puzzled look falling into the worried category as he doesn't seem to want to catch her eye. "Well that doesn't sound too bad, at least you were given something specific to gather, I was just told to bring good scents on the sands for the clutchdam. I'd been wracking my brain to try and figure out how to accomplish that before the jungle took over the Barracks." If he doesn't want to speak, then Xan will have to speak for the both of them then, not that the raven-haired girl has a problem with that.

For today at least, the galleries seem to be the place to be right now, and Edlsesa seems to be following the trend. She moves into the hot viewing area with a rolled up hide under one arm and the effects for her robe in the other. She's been taking advice from people and found a robe already made, it just needed altering and she's been working on it painstakingly. She's no seamstress for sure. Finding a place near the other two, but far enough away that she won't be intruding, she sits. The stuff for her robe is set aside and the hide unfolded. She's been given a task by the clutchfather, and well, that takes priority. Pulling a stylus from behind her ear, she begins to peruse the lines she's written thus far.

For his part, Iandicael seems torn between making a swift exit, and listening to that mysterious young woman who abandoned him here in the first place. It must have been for a reason, but that reason certainly wasn't to scowl at his fellow candidates and avoid looking at the sands for more than a moment or two at a time. "Seems like saying she needs to tend to her hair." With a runner brush? He shakes his head a bit, those dark brows drawing together. "People in the Bazaar can get you things. Oils." Another candidate approaches, and Iandicael eyes this girl with his usual critical eye.
Furrowing her brows, Xanthee looks unconvinced at Iandicael's reluctance at fullfilling the clutchsire's request. But when he mentions oils she giggles a little bit, "I thought about that you know, but oils you'd always have to reapply, and this was something for the gold, not her rider. So with these pillows, all

Furrowing her brows, Xanthee looks unconvinced at Iandicael's reluctance at fullfilling the clutchsire's request. But when he mentions oils she giggles a little bit, "I thought about that you know, but oils you'd always have to reapply, and this was something for the gold, not her rider. So with these pillows, all Zsaviranth has to go is nudge one with her nose…" Xan demonstrates by punching the completed pillow and again sending a plume of dense floral aroma into the air around them. Spying Edlsesa now though she offers the younger girl a wave, "You just missed your brother." she remarks in passing.

For Faranth's sake! Sesa has had the hardest time tracking that man down as of late, and hearing Xan quip about just missing him has Sesa raising her head to look at the girl with a bit of disbelief. "That seems to be the norm lately. I'll catch him at some point. Have you noticed anything weird about him lately?" Iandicael is given her own critical look, hazel eyes sweeping over her fellow candidate.

Floral scent assaulting his nose, Iandicael is quick to wave his hand to try to waft the smell in another direction. Others might like it, but he's clearly not keen if the way his nose scruches is any indication. Or perhaps that's just the beginning of a sneeze. "I have to go," he utters abruptly, getting to his feet. No farewells, no waves, simply this plain utterance before the awkward man vanishes from whence he came.

"Funny man." Xanthee mutters as Iandicael takes his very abrupt leave of the Galleries. With one final shake of her head to clear the mind of the puzzling behavious from the brooding man, she turns back to Sesa and sighs heavily, "It's not my information to give unfortunately. I know he probably wants to tell you, but Candidacy is, as ever, completely insane. He'll get around to it hopefully soon." It looks like it's killing Xan not to share the knowledge she has, wanting to reassure the young harper that everything is ok with their shared brother.

Frustration warring with her good sense, Sesa sighs as she watches Ian flee the floral scent and shakes her head. "It's alright, I didn't expect muchin the way of information, thank you for being a good sister and not spilling his beans. But I wish he would talk to me. I'm feeling a bit adrift with neither brother to talk to." She looks a bit crestfallen at that and looks back down at her hide. "Those smell really good Xanthee." And back to her editing she goes, but she is listening for more conversation.

Fortunately, Xanthee is sympathetic to Edlsesa's plight, and softens her gaze in the direction of the harper girl. "I'm sorry about that. That has to really be rough." she offers up with a supportive glance at the other girl as she picks up her next pillow case and brings it forward, measuring out another length of thread and pulling it throught he eye of the needle with practiced ease. "And thanks, I'm hoping the Weyrwoman's queen will like them. I better hurry up and get them done though or the eggs will hatch first." she says with a little chuckle, "Were you given a quest by Wendryth? I can't remember if you told me or not."

For what it's worth, Xanthee with add, "I will gently urge Daenerys to seek you out for a chat as soon as he can manage. I usually see him at least at lights out." As she continues her neat stitching along the opening in the pillow case, she considers Sesa's words and smiles, "Well, you weren't specifically told not to put it to music were you?" Pausing for her moment, her expression is thoughtful, "I mean, isn't that what a ballad is? A story to music?"

Frick! Frick! Frick! Scratch, scratch, scratch goes the stylus across the hide. Another line struck from the record of Sesa's tale. "No, it wasn't that specific, but I was never any good at Ballads. Stories, I'm good at, Music, I'm good at, but meshing them together? Not so great. I can hear it in my head, but it never makes sense to anyone else." Yeah….she's weird like that. She looks grateful too, that Xan will speak to Daen. Sesa is basically asleep as soon as she hits the pillows these days.

Fighting to keep her expression neutral in the face of Sesa's furious scratching, Xanthee just lowers her eyes back to her own task at hand. "Well, you can do more than me. And I'm sure it will come too you, maybe you need to put it away for a bit, work on something else." And with that, she bobs her head in the direction of the robe and things the younger girl has with her. But that's as far as Xan will go with her suggestion, as she buckles down to work then, focusing until all the pillow cases are sewn up, just in time for the two candidates to go and eat together.